Cherry Preserves
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pit the sour cherries carefully.
Measure an equal amount of sugar to the fruit.
Sprinkle half the sugar over the cherries and let them stand for about an hour.
Cook the syrup
Pour the cherries into a preserving kettle and boil slowly for ten minutes.
Skim out the cherries.
Add the remaining sugar to the syrup, then boil the syrup.
Skim the syrup if necessary.
Pour the syrup over the cherries.
Rest and reboil
The next day, drain off the syrup.
Boil the syrup again.
Skim the syrup if necessary.
Add the cherries back to the syrup.
Boil for twenty minutes.
Seal
Seal in small jars.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Sour cherries
- Provide the fruit, its tartness, and the body of the preserve.
- Sugar
- Draws water out of the fruit and thickens the syrup, giving sweetness and preserving the cherries.
The step that matters
Boil for twenty minutes. Boiling the cherries in the syrup must be steady but not violent, so the fruit keeps its shape. Sugar concentrates as water evaporates and the syrup thickens as it cools, so overcooking can make the preserve too stiff or hard.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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